Bernard Cribbins, who has died aged 93 after a career as a much-loved character actor spanning more than 75 years, was a great ambassador for angling who will be sorely missed.

I’m bound to say that because I filmed and produced them, along with funding their production but because so many folk write complimentary letters constantly assuring us that they are the best fishing films that have ever been made, who are we to argue! So with so many happy memories of his time there, Chris was keen to return, not so that he could catch yet more big carp but so that he could finally try out his eccentric idea of a fishing scarecrow! Hugh Miles, Angling Trust Ambassador and film maker, said Bernard was a creative genius – and a very good angler. If you want to read more about our year and conservation issues, please visit our blog … we have had 67,000 views already so some of you obviously have time to waste … http://hughmiles9.blogspot.co.uk/

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Mr James, 47, said yesterday he was saddened by the episode, after eight years working with the ACA, and that he had fallen foul of a wider jealousy in the world of angling. Fishing yesterday with his close friend Mr Tarrant, he said: "Both my wife and I are very sad that it came to this. We absolutely deny that we did anything wrong. But there are lots of people out there who have become green-eyed monsters.

Martin Salter, Angling Trust’s Head of Policy, said that Bernard “really was the voice of angling”. Some also claim‘Impossible’ to be better even than ‘Passion’, others disagree ; you’ll have to decide yourselves. Incidentally, we planned to catch a 3lb rudd for the series but that did prove impossible!HUGH MILES:“Sixty-odd, on the basis of those measurements. Chris had a picture of his record fish from Redmire and Harry took one look at it and said, without any hesitation, “Oh no, it’s bigger than that,” so yes, it would easily have been a record at the time.” Like all creative endeavours, making films is an inexact art, there is no right or wrong … which is probably why I was able to earn a living making wildlife films! I have made over sixty now, for all the worlds major TV companies, so I guess I got some of it right. Whatever the truth, it was a privilege to go to so many wild places to share my life with charismatic animals and meet so many great guys and gals.

A Passion for Angling’ and ‘Catching the Impossible’ are still capturing big audiences, for they describe the magic of being by the waterside with a rod and line like no others. tending our large wildlife garden. It’s a lot of work but we love it and the digging certainly keeps us fit. We also filmed a gudgeon match ‘to the death’, the pair reluctantly punting out into the hallowed waters through the mist as the sun was rising. Chris doesn’t do early mornings so it was a struggle, even if we did capture the most evocative summer sequence in the whole series. When creating our ‘Passion for Angling’ series for the BBC, it was a no brainer to choose Bernard to describe the adventures of Chris Yates and Bob James and it was his dulcet tones that contributed so much to the success of the series.HUGH MILES: “We knew there was a monster fish in there, so it was very exciting, more so perhaps than Redmire. Redmire was a known quantity, if you like. There might’ve been a huge fish in there, but there didn’t seem to be any record of anyone having seen any big ones. When Chris was there with Rod Hutchinson though, they did see some really big fish and of course, some were caught that later became records.”